Super Bowl mania has captivated this proud, conservative city on the edge of the Ohio River, turning its normally sedate populace into football-crazy fans. People have literally draped the town in orange and black, while learning silly chants and raps -- such as "Who Dey Think Gonna Beat Them Bengals" -- to go with their new dance step, the Ickey Shuffle.

All of Cincinnati seems focused on Sunday, as if the prize were a championship for their city, not just for their football team.

"The pride in the sports teams is a reflection of the people's pride in their city," said Mayor Charles Luken. "You're really looking at a city that has probably never in its history been more up."

In its heart, this is really just a small town, despite its lively, skyscraper-studded downtown and sprawling manufacturing plants in the suburbs. It is a blue-collar place of sports bars and family oriented entertainment, of stable and friendly neighborhoods.

Mark Twain once said that if the world ended, he'd rather be in Cincinnati because things happen here 10 years later. Actually, it is not a backwards town, just old-fashioned in some ways.

Athletes are the local celebrities here; fans wave to them on the roadways and approach them in area bars or restaurants. Players become symbols of the community, regular figures at charitable events. It is oddly natural for Bengals linebacker Reggie Williams to serve as a city councilman.

This city also takes its sports seriously. Though the Cincinnati's Reds finished second in the NL West last year, their baseball season was considered "disappointing." Being No. 2 isn't good enough in Cincinnati -- especially after its team went to the World Series four times in the 1970s and won twice.

In 1987, when the Bengals played poorly, the stadium seating about 60,000 still held near-sellout crowds -- filled with fans booing. One angry fan even dumped beer on coach Sam Wyche as he strode to the locker room after a loss.

During the NFL strike, a local newspaper ran a box on the front page telling Cincinnatians what they could do on a Sunday without football. One suggestion was watching a rerun of last year's Super Bowl game.

"It's amazing what a football team can do to a city, especially a city like Cincinnati," said Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason. "When you're in New York, Chicago, L.A., you've got a lot of other things going on. In Cincinnati, 95 percent of the people know what the Bengals are. They live and die for the Bengals."

BOOMER THE VILLAIN

Last year, during the strike, Esiason was the Bengals players' representative -- and the fans' football villain. Cincinnati doesn't take well to strikes, especially strikes by its well-paid celebrities. Promotional spots featuring Esiason were pulled from local television, and anonymous callers threatened to torch his house.

Today he is a hometown hero, someone who has "matured" on and off the field. People send him photos of their blond-haired babies, nicknamed "Boomer."

No one is more amazed by that turnaround than Esiason's wife, Cheryl, who was ready to leave Cincinnati after the team finished 4-11. They lost all but one home game last year -- as if the fan grumbling made their home field a disadvantage. This year, the Bengals won every home game and the two at-home playoffs.

"This is an identity for them," she said, relaxing for a moment in her spacious home in the northern Kentucky hills while her phone rang constantly with calls from well-wishers. "When the Bengals are doing bad, the city is just doing bad."

Now, despite the biting cold and dreary sky of January, Cincinnati is on the top of the world. The city just celebrated its bicentennial -- an event that attracted far more hoopla here than it would in most American cities. The Super Bowl has been treated as the fitting, final birthday party.

A ROAR IN THE JUNGLE

Fans have let loose all season long, dubbing their stadium "The Jungle," and screaming until their voices gave out.

"We don't have a dome. I guess we don't need one," said Bengals general manager Paul Brown, 80, after he walked down to the field when the team won the conference championship. "The enthusiasm is plain overwhelming. It helps carry our guys along. They're like the 12th man, the way they help us."

Even a nursing home west of the city got into the spirit, holding two pep rallies and decorating their lunch area with orange and black banners. Residents waved pom-pons and sang along to old show tunes with the words appropriately altered for the occasion.

When staffers in Bengals garb asked for volunteers who wanted their faces painted with orange-and-black tiger stripes, wheelchair-bound Eleanor Stevens was the first one in line.

"You have to be nutty to do this, I'm telling you," said Stevens, 78.

Attorney Jack Rubenstein said, "The fans this year have really gone crazy. It's just unusual for this community to get so outwardly expressive. When you go into a season not expecting a whole lot, (and the teams wins), you get carried away."

The mayor has wholeheartedly joined in the fun. As he drove his daughter to school one morning, he noticed that the street was Montana Avenue.

"No self-respecting Cincinnatian would want to drive on a street named after (49ers quarterback) Joe Montana," he said.

So he unofficially renamed it Esiason Street until after the Super Bowl. A die-hard fan carried out his declaration by climbing up the street-sign pole, marking out Montana with tape and putting up his own handcrafted sign.

CITY SOAKS UP SPOTLIGHT

Cincinnatians are also keenly aware that a Super Bowl appearance puts their city in the national spotlight, a place they are determined to shine. With little prompting, they boast about the city's five-star restaurants, beautiful waterfront, thriving downtown and good family life.

Outside its center, Cincinnati seems to change ever so slowly, as it remains a city of generally older homes, factories and barge docks.

Despite plant closings like those that hit other industrial Midwest cities, this is no place to find Rust Belt despair. Cincinnati's economy has shown an amazing resilience as jobs continue to grow steadily, more than absorbing the losses. The unemployment rate is about 4.5 percent, slightly below the national average.

Nationally, the city is viewed neither positively nor negatively, according to a recent Chamber of Commerce study. But executives comment in surveys that they have trouble getting their employees to leave for a job transfer.

"It's another chance for us to prove our city is it," said Susan Porter, a 23-year-old marketing consultant, who was giving high-fives with a huge tiger- paw glove in Flanagan's bar the night of the playoff win. "I think Cincinnati should be the capital of Ohio -- and I'm from Columbus."

"We're not a cocky city, that's the best part," added her friend, Mike Simmons, 22. "We're a good, solid team. We just do our job and get out and win games. It feels good to get wild on the Bengals."